


Clean Slate

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Light Angst, glamour springs, taako asks lucretia to erase glamour springs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 10:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14692592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Lucretia was used to Bureau members coming to her asking if they could erase information with the voidfish. Of course, she couldn't allow them to wipe away such things as personal debts and the like. It was unethical and the resulting chaos would probably draw more attention to them than they could afford.When Taako comes to her a few days after joining the Bureau, asking her to erase a tragedy well, after everything she'd stolen from him without his permission she couldn't say no to the one thing he was giving willingly.





	Clean Slate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkrystalSky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkrystalSky/gifts).



Lucretia sat in her office, letting herself get caught up on the more menial tasks required to run the bureau. There was a desire to go back to what had become her normal over the past ten years, after the new development. This was a good change though, this was what she needed and more importantly what the world needed.

Now that she had Magnus, Merle and Taako with her again she’d be able to gather the relics. She could fix this, keep the world safe and truly bring her family back together again. Or at least, most of them.

This was a good thing, but even still it was an adjustment. Seeing them had been more difficult than she expected. They’d changed more than she imagined. The ripples of everything she’d stolen with the voidfish had distorted them to a point where it was hard to recognize them. A part of her worried it wasn’t just that either. Ten years can do a lot to a person, it had done so much to her. She’d been used to an element of stability over their long journey, and that was gone now.

And there was a part of her that worried maybe they weren’t as off as she thought. If anyone knew how fallible memories were it was her.

Instead of thinking on that she turned herself to her work. She’d finally made progress after so many failures, it wasn’t hard to motivate herself with that.

She was halfway through going through some expenses reports for the damages done during the trial of initiation when there was a quiet knock at her office door. It was so quiet in fact that she might not have heard it if there had been any sound in the room besides the scratches of pen on paper.

“Come in,” Lucretia called, sitting up straighter and putting the report down for now. Whoever it was on the other side seemed to hesitate a moment, but then the door finally cracked open. Lucretia wasn’t sure who she’d been expecting, a guard or seeker she hadn’t interacted with much and had taken her position a bit too seriously.

Instead, Taako came shuffling into the room, looking nervous and almost sheepish. Lup’s umbrastaff was hooked around his wrist and the whole sight made her chest ache.

She’d known Taako for so long, and she’d never seen him look quite so small. Out of all of them, the differences in him after the ten years were the most striking.

“Hello Taako, do you need something?” Lucretia asked, not letting any of the turmoil inside of her to show through. Taako was better at reading people than he thought. She couldn’t give herself away, no matter how much a part of her wanted to.

“You know, I just might,” Taako said, as though he hadn’t been the one to come to her office. “Uh, a question first though, not real sure how things work here yet. On the moon.”

“Of course,” Lucretia said, nodding for him to continue. Whatever this was about, he was nervous.

“So uh, right. This whole operation, it’s run by the voidfishy, right?” he asked and she frowned.

“It’s not- the voidfish isn’t in  _ charge.  _ It’s an animal,” she said, but Taako was shaking his head.

“Right no, I got that. I mean like, it does the erasing thing? Can it- it can erase anything? And only the peeps here can know the shit after they drink its shit? That’s how that works, right?” he asked. Lucretia nodded, starting to get an idea of where this was going. It wasn’t the first time someone had come to her with this sort of request.

“The voidfish is what allows us to block information and do our work without the world descending into chaos, yes,” she said.

“Cool cool, so uh, is it just kinda a free for all? If I wanted to erase something is there some sorta form I gotta fill out or how does that work?” he asked, trying to sound casual about the whole thing. Lucretia sighed heavily, but she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. If she had to put a guess on one of them wanting to erase something, it would be Taako.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow our members to erase their personal debts. It’s a bit of an abuse of the power we have here, as well as unethical,” she said. Taako was trying to hide his disappointment, but it was obvious in the way his ears turned down and his shoulders slumped ever so slightly.

“Right, no that makes sense, that’s cool,” he said, and Lucretia thought that would be the end of it. Instead of excusing himself though he shifted awkwardly as he tried to find the right words.

“This ain’t like a money thing though. It’s just cha’ boy ain’t sure if he’ll be able to go on your magic recon missions with this information out there. At least not without being arrested on the spot,” he said. Lucretia blinked, not expecting that.

“If it’s something that can affect your work here we can consider it,” she said, and she could see Taako perk up some at that. “What happened?” she asked. She needed to know to decide if it could be erased, but a part of her was simply worried.

She’d lost track of them all over the years. She had been so busy, trying to get the relics on her own, starting the bureau. She didn’t have the time to keep an eye on them.

“Oh, well you know how it is. One day, you’re performing in your cooking show, I had a cooking show by the way, pretty popular. But yeah, sometimes you go and you mean to transmute elderberries, but instead you get nightshade and whoops, forty people are dead and you’re on the run,” Taako said. His voice casual and light and so forced, an obvious edge of discomfort and shame under the exaggerated carelessness.

Lucretia felt frozen as she took it in. It was- the last time she’d looked in on his show, she’d only seen something about a temporary hiatus. She hadn’t bothered to look any further than that. She hadn’t thought about why Taako would decide to put a stop to his show.

And if she had, she never would have thought it would be something like that.

“So… yeah,” Taako said, the hesitant sheepishness from when he’d first came in back. “That’s Taako- That’s Taako’s whole deal. Might not be an issue but I don’t know how low profile these jobs are gonna be so I just thought… a heads up, I guess.” Lucretia nodded before closing her eyes and letting out a long, slow breath.

“I understand,” she said finally, coming to a decision. “Write down the information and bring it back to me. I’ll look it over to make sure it’s not erasing any more than necessary and feed it to the voidfish.”

“Oh!” Taako said, clearly surprised. “Hell yeah, I’ll get right on that,” he added. Before she could say anything else he was gone, Lucretia getting the distinct impression he wanted to leave before she changed her mind.

Not that she would on this. When Taako came back a few hours later with a piece of paper detailing the events of Glamour Springs she was even more sure in her decision.

This had been her fault. His description of events only convinced her further. Something had gone wrong with his magic, the transmutation magic he wielded with a skill Lucretia hadn’t seen anyone else possess in a hundred worlds. He had so much more power than he was aware of.

He didn’t know what he was capable of, she’d stolen that knowledge from him. Because of that, he wasn’t able to control himself, and forty people died in the process.

“This should suffice,” she told him, after carefully blotting out some extra details he’d added in. There was no need to erase the town of Glamour Springs entirely, or Sizzle It Up as a whole. “I’ll have it brought down to Johann and fed to the voidfish immediately,” she added. She could see the relief washing off of Taako in waves.

“Cool, that’s- that’ll avoid some pretty awkward situations,” he said. She could see him hesitate but she didn’t press him, just waiting for a moment for him to continue.

“Thanks, madame Director, it’s uh, I’ve been kinda messed up about it,” he said finally.

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything else,” she said, and it was hard trying to keep that professional air there. To not try to comfort her friend as much as possible.

“Will do,” Taako said, turning and leaving her office. As soon as she was alone again Lucretia looked down at the single piece of paper detailing the tragedy at Glamour Springs.  

It would only take a moment, to copy down the information and feed to it the baby voidfish. Taako had changed in the years, but she could see how badly this was tormenting him.

She could take that pain away.

Lucretia was already reaching for her pen when she forced herself to stop. It was selfish of her, but the thought of taking even more from Taako, even something that was hurting him, was too much to bear.

And even more selfishly, if she took away this trauma she doubted he would stay here. There would be nothing keeping him from returning to his show and the happy life she’d tried to set up for him.

As much as she wanted him, wanted all of her family to be happy, she needed them now. She couldn’t save everything without their help.

Taking the paper, Lucretia carefully folded it and placed it in an envelope. Not giving herself anymore time to second guess, she started down to the voidfish’s chambers. It took only a moment to place the envelope into the tank and watch as Fisher consumed the information.

She couldn’t take it all from him, but she could do this.

It wasn’t much, but after everything she stole from him, she could at least take the one thing he’d given willingly.

**Author's Note:**

> A request for DarkrystalSky! This was really fun to write, i need to write lucretia more and her and Taako's dynamic is just so interesting no matter what point in canon you're taking it from. I really hope you liked this! 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


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